Petroleum products have application in a variety of uses, including using as lubricants and as feedstock for forming various plastics, polymers, and other chemicals. However, fuel applications are still a dominant use for all types of petroleum streams. In a fuel application, the value of a petroleum product is related to the amount of energy provided per unit weight or volume. Unfortunately, the energy value of a petroleum sample is not immediately apparent from directly observable characteristics of a sample, such as viscosity or specific gravity.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,275,775 describes methods for correlating properties determined by conventional methods with measurements made using a chromatography technique. The described methods start by determining properties for a set of sample compounds using a conventional method, such as using an ASTM method for determining cetane. The reference set of compounds are then characterized using chromatography combined with another spectroscopic technique to characterize the compounds relative to boiling point. The two measurements for the reference compounds are then used to build a model. An unknown sample is then measured using the chromatography and spectroscopic technique, and the model is used to determine the correlated property value for the unknown sample in relation to a predicted boiling point profile for the unknown sample.